


Blinded by the Light From Me

by Dancains



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: A possible explanation for Isabella, Gen, Not A Happy Ending, One Shot, Os/Ed isn't the focus of this but is alluded to, exactly 1k words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-30
Updated: 2017-08-30
Packaged: 2018-12-21 14:26:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11946171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dancains/pseuds/Dancains
Summary: Was he that intoxicated by the memory of Kristen, or the idea of her? Because Isabella certainly wasn't her, only an echo of the curve of her lips and the curves of her body. Like something out of a Hitchcock-fueled fever dream. No real woman (in her right mind) would want to be with a three-times convicted murderer, a man who was rightfully put into Arkham, let alone lovingly compare him to the romantic leading men of her favorite stories.





	Blinded by the Light From Me

Finding him downtown in the upscale liquor store was just as easy as expected. Her eyes traveled up the long lines of a well-cut suit and paused at his face--lean and chiseled and bathed in cool, red light.

She could almost see why Kristen fell in love with him.

Almost.

She knew that the first approach was the moment this all hinged upon. She had no thoughts of turning back. 

A graceful hand went to the back of her neck, to make sure every strand of peroxide blonde was perfectly in place. Perfect was the key word in this operation.

“Impossible to pick the perfect bottle, isn't it?”

When his eyes meet hers, they shine like those of drowning man being offered a life line. And she knows she has Edward Nygma–hook, line, and sinker.

It was simple enough to immerse herself in the role, it's like stepping into a swimming pool and being slowly submerged. She’s done this before, after all. 

Though, she never thought she would have to recreate herself completely a second time. By now deception feels like a second skin. She’s no longer the woman she once was, or the woman she created when she thought she had left Gotham for good.

Now, she’s only Isabella.

This new concocted life of a quiet, demure librarian so effortlessly transposes over her own that she nearly forgets her own first name. Her real one, she thinks--the name that her sister used to call her.

Kristen always had terrible taste in men. Isabella remembers this from far back.

Despite what many believe, even identical twins aren’t perfectly alike.

Everything she had read about Edward Nygma, all the intelligence she had gathered from her scattered, covert sources, had told her that he was a one-in-a-million intellect. A genius, or a savant even. 

Despite this, not a single thing she did appeared to raise a red flag. Was he that intoxicated by the memory of Kristen, or the idea of her? 

Because Isabella certainly wasn't her, only an echo of the curve of her lips and the curves of her body. Like something out of a Hitchcock-fueled fever dream. 

No real woman (in her right mind) would want to be with a three-times convicted murderer, a man who was rightfully put into Arkham, let alone lovingly compare him to the romantic leading men of her favorite stories. 

This story certainly wasn't Romeo and Juliet; she had no intention of dying.

What did surprise Isabella, if only momentarily, was when Mayor Cobblepot came to her at the library. She doesn’t refer to him as the mayor in her mind, but she does to his face. It may be an empty title but he certainly doesn’t deserve it, she decideds. He was the reason Nygma was roaming free.

In a strange way, his little half-warning half-threat would almost be sweet, If it was directed at any other woman, or if it wasn’t completely motivated by his own selfish desires.

Oswald Cobblepot was the one small hitch that might tear apart her plan from the seams. With a placid smile glued to her face she watches him.

He’s such an expressive man, and does little to hide it. If she had time to dwell on such things, she would wonder how he got so far as a side-switching mobster while wearing his heart on his sleeve. The smile falls from her face as the door closes behind him.

Less than a week later, she watches from the shadowy corner of the parking garbage as a man cuts the break line on her car. She waits noiselessly and unseen until he’s finished the task, then dials Ed and tells him the convention has been cancelled.

She sets down the phone, and the apartment that almost feels like it belongs to her seems empty. She puts on a cup of coffee and thinks of the penguin. How devoted this strange creature was, she marveled, to the man who killed her sister.

It's no difficult task getting herself invited to the mansion, this time while Cobblepot's home. She tells Ed that she would love to have dinner with the both of them. That if the mayor still had any interest in learning more about the founding families of Gotham they could discuss a research paper she had completed many years ago. 

Ed was delighted at the thought, the converging of his two spheres. How blind he was to not see that the best friend and the woman he adored couldn't stand each other, let alone the sorry fact that Cobblepot looked as if his heart shattered every time Isabella's name fell from Ed's lips.

She gave them both another perfect lipstick smile, too white teeth flashing at one and then the other.

The three course spread had been beautiful, bathed in the soft glow of a half dozen taper candles. Her eyes followed the beads of wax as they slowly dripped down to the tablecloth. Neither Ed or Oswald (as she was told to address him) seem to have noticed. 

Ed hasn't stopped talking since they sat down, excited by the presence of his two favorite people. He had barely pecked at the various course. Finally dessert was laid out in front of them and Oswald excused the cook for the night. The older Russian woman seemed to be the sole staff in the entire place. 

The crooning of an old record was the only thing she could hear besides Ed's chatter. 

Oswald sat at the head of the table with Ed on his right and Isabella on his left. His eyes seemed tired, glazed and red rimmed, and unlike his two guests he was sipping something honey colored out of a short glass with melted iced. It's his sixth drink. An untouched glass of red wine sits in front of Isabella.   
   
The shock on Ed's face is completely genuine as she draws a handgun from her purse and aims it at Oswald's head.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from the La Roux song "In for the Kill". 
> 
> I wanted to do something brief with the idea that Isabella was Kristen's sister who had left Gotham in the past after some incident and was living under the witness protection program (or some similar incognito situation), hence never being mentioned by Kristen, and she seduced Ed with the intent of killing him (or someone dear to him). This is my first Gotham fic but I have some longer stuff in the works.


End file.
